Wrong, says Jeffrey Reed, who will be guest conductor as the ASO plays songs about the Southland at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 4 at Samford University’s Wright Center in Birmingham.

Reed, music director of Orchestra Kentucky, will be bringing a group of real rock musicians, The Rewinders, down to play everything from Charlie Daniels and Allman Brothers to John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Reed says every song will all sound just like it does on the original record – every guitar lick, every drumbeat, every vocal. And sometimes there will be added instrumentation – but only as it works with the original song.

Don’t let your conscience bother you; if you listened to it on a Pioneer Super Tuner with a pair of 6-by-9 speakers in the back dash, you should enjoy the symphony’s jam session, Reed promises.

“We are using orchestra in the right way,” he said.

The Rewinders rock out for orchestra fans.(Special)

Some songs just sound orchestral to start with, he said. Procol Harem’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” is one example. “ I always thought that had an orchestra feel even though they didn’t use an orchestra,” he said. “It sounds a lot like Bach could have written it if he’d been a rock ‘n’ roller.”

In other cases, “This is what the producers might have done if they’d had an orchestra around.”

And in yet other cases, the musicians are pulling the right instruments out of their cases, though they might have a different name for them than, say, Charlie Daniels might.

“We’re doing ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” Reed said. “We could bring a fiddler down, but why do that when we have an entire violin section?”

The Rewinders and Reed have done several shows with symphonies, but this one was created especially for the ASO.

Reed founded The Rewinders specifically to play with Orchestra Kentucky, and he admits that even the members themselves were skeptical at first that he wasn’t just turning that old time rock ‘n’ roll into something too high-brow .

The wheels started turning for Reed 12 years ago. He was watching television when a commercial for The Beatles’ “1” album came on.

“My children were in preschool, and they were singing along with them.”

He figured if his young kids knew the Beatles, he ought to be playing them. Thus The Rewinders were born. Their first concert with Orchestra Kentucky was a Beatles tribute.

Since then The Rewinders have done several concerts featuring classic rock music.

In Birmingham, everyone will love something, Reed said. Some people will come because they like Southern rock, others because they are symphony subscribers. But even the latter will recognize the songs he has selected. “It may not be their first love, but it will be songs they know.”

The ASO concert will include “Ramblin’ Man,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and, of course, “Sweet Home Alabama.”

“I think people would boo if we didn’t do that ,” Reed said.

There’s a nostalgia in the shows that brings back happier times, he said.